Like this:

A candle for Cornelia and Chris. Praying for a full and fast recovery.

Before I get to the best of the week, I have a prayer request to pass along. Fellow writer and parent Cornelia Seigneur and her husband Chris were hit by a car Friday evening while taking a walk. A hour before the accident, Cornelia wrote a post about appreciating the people in our lives… ..saying “you just never know when you’ll see people – savor moments with people…” I’ve featured her post here before and I want to start off this week’s blog roundup with her writing …

These are the questions that Advent asks, and more and more Christians from outside the liturgical traditions of Catholicism, Anglicanism, and Lutheranism are finding value in the questions and value in this season.

Our family is Catholic, so we’ve always kept Advent. We’ve lit an Advent Wreath week by week every year of our marriage. And now that our daughter Anna is old enough, she reads the prayers each week. We added an Advent Calendar this year as well. Each night, Anna opens another door and reads a short scripture verse about the coming of Christ.

And we’ve added one more tradition to our observance of the season. One that prepares the way and a place in our hearts through helping the poor parents who in Christ’s eyes are his poor parents, and the poor children who in his words are him. We joined a large group of volunteers helping a local business bring Christmas cheer to hundreds of families who can’t afford to buy for their own children.

We bought for three families, with eight kids total ranging from six months to ten years old. Anna helped us pick out clothes and toys, especially for the girls, and in three hours this evening we made an immeasurable difference in eight lives.

And tomorrow, Anna and Julia will help wrap the gifts. I’m staying home for that part. Given my lack of wrapping talent I’m more help not being there.

The slogan of all scouts, both girl and boy, is the same—”do a good turn daily.” It’s a good slogan to live by.

How often do any of us follow that advice? When we have an opportunity to “do a good turn” do we take it? Do we even notice. or are we too caught up in our own problems to see anyone else’s?

And it’s so simple. It’s something each of us can do in a moment and it might just make a difference.

See a piece of trash left on the ground? Pick it up.

See a shopping cart in the parking lot? Take it back into the store.

See someone struggling with grocery bags and a door? Hold the door open.

These are the kind of things I try to notice every day when I’m out and I try to remember to do them. Just three examples, but there are many more. And I’m not going to say that by doing these things we’ll solve all the world’s problems. But we might make someone else’s day a bit better. And they might do the same for someone else.

Call it a random act of kindness, or loving your neighbor as yourself.

That one day, we will all hold hands and D A N C E in heaven, like birds on trees, being moved by the warm magnolia breeze, like purple annuals and yellow perennials growing in the same garden of love.